A new term crossed my idea-horizon recently, a combination of simple math and simple philosophy: joy-to-stuff ratio.

It's a glaringly obvious concept, and therefore an extraordinarily important one. Take the amount of fun I'm having in life, and divide by the amount of time I'm spending on acquiring, managing, and consuming material possessions. Is the quotient adequate? Is it increasing as time goes by? Or am I owning more things but enjoying them less? All good questions to ask.

Of course, the devil's advocate in me must now observe that by getting rid of all possessions I can at least briefly achieve an infinite joy-to-stuff ratio, assuming that I still maintain a positive total happiness. And if I have a negative net worth and a negative pleasure, does that then imply a positive joy/stuff? The mind wanders ...

(cf. MoreFunLessStuff (1 Oct 2002), For Themselves (8 Jun 2003), CutTheVolume (5 Mar 2004), DalaiLamaBirthdayGift (24 Aug 2004), ConspicuousAnticonsumption (17 Sep 2004), ...)

TopicLife - TopicEconomics - TopicSociety - TopicHumor - 2005-08-25

(correlates: HouseProud, NewYearResolution, HeavySleeper, ...)